So I arrived at 2 values in my calculations for visual and photography, I split the difference in the focuser placement. Since it's a sonotube with a backup half untouched, I feel comfortable making some more cuts!

46” Mirror face to focuser is the new value and 55” seems like a nice tube length?! Let's see....

This is the mirror cell, which will hold the primary mirror in place. I need to design an method to mount it into the tube. Initially I will use a piece of plywood to mount into the sonotube, but ultimately the adapting plate will be made by the aluminum tube manufacturer, TSI.

The sonotube came from a company in Raleigh, Form Tech Concrete. I ordered a sonotube but received a E-Z Pour. The diameter of the tube is such that it won't fit in the awesome rings I got from Ken Dauzat, so not quite Peanut Butter and Jelly yet.

Not the full weight, only about 23.5 lbs total for the rings and empty tube. The rings are about 6lbs and the tube is about 16.5lbs. The tube didn't fit as it's about 1in larger in diameter than the final product, which I hope in't an issue for measurements and handoff to the aluminum fabricator. It's also a rough cut in half as the product was shipped in 12foot lengths, so it's about 6 feet instead of about 5 for the final. Just barely fits in the garage! Phew!

Some highlights are:

Open and holding the awesome custom handle:

Ready to load?

Bungeed for safety! For mirror placment in the ready to use section I added zip times, the final form has finished, threaded bolts!

Quite a reach to the top:

It's huge in here, but where's the mirror?

The best part! Happyily with the wheels I don't take it apart much and the handle is sometimes more of a guide-sight than handle!

Every good technical mistress has to have a name. For many years all my computers have names, thank goodness as it gets confusing which black, IBM/Lenovo is which sometimes! The Computer names have always been star constellations and I don't know that any have ever gotten repeated in the 15 years I've been doing it.

That naming doesn't work for a telescope for one obvious reason, and another being it's not a computer. I thought perhaps a good Tolkien name would do. I poked at the index of The Lord of The Rings online and one name immediately jumped out, SHADOWFAX. I bounced the idea of Mitch Duke and he seemed to enjoy it enough and watned to know what you thought! Put your ideas in the comments, but for now, I think it's going to be:

SILVER SHADOWFAX

Yeah, G-d rest his soul, but I took some artistic license with JRR's work!